Pro Intermediate

Matsutake

7 Topics
25 minutes

About This Lesson

Pacific matsutake is one of the most prized mushrooms in the world, and a major commercial harvest in our region. It is also a mushroom with a dangerous look-alike in the same forests in the same weeks. This lesson walks through the five checks that separate matsutake from its look-alikes, then lets you test yourself on photos.

It pairs with the Fall Edibles class. It also builds on the Popular PNW Edible Mushrooms lesson, which covers the easier species. For a one-page reference, see the matsutake guide.

Matsutake is not a beginner mushroom. Treat this lesson as a case study in careful identification, not a license to eat the first white mushroom you find under a pine.

This lesson is not enough to identify matsutake. Get experience in the field, and have every mushroom checked in hand by someone who can reliably tell matsutake from other Tricholoma and from Amanita, especially Smith’s amanita, before you eat any. Keep doing that until they agree you get it right every time.

Lesson Curriculum

This lesson includes 7 topics covering essential information. Sign in to start this lesson.

  1. Matsutake: What It Is

  2. The Five Checks

  3. Where and When

  4. Danger: Smith's Amanita

  5. Other Look-Alikes

  6. Picking Rules

  7. Test Yourself: Matsutake or Not?